The Great Future of Agriculture achieved by Science and Technology

The world's population is growing, and by 2050, the world's population is expected to increase from 7 billion to 9.6 billion. However, we have reclaimed 40% of the earth's land. How to feed so many people? Food production needs to be increased by 70% to avoid mass malnutrition, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Unfortunately, we don't have much land to develop, which means we can only change the way food is grown on a large scale.

It is feasible to improve the cultivation of fruits and vegetables first. The Tavenas Desert in southern Spain is the driest place in Europe, but it produces more than half of Europe's fresh fruits and vegetables, contributing $1.5 billion to the local economy and is regarded as an economic miracle. Its achievement is mainly the use of greenhouse planting, because the environment in the greenhouse is controllable, which is conducive to the cultivation of fruits and vegetables. The Tavenas model can be promoted in other parts of the world. From the perspective of environment and land use, controllable environmental agriculture is a great idea. The output of vegetables and fruits in the greenhouse is much higher than that of open-air planting, because weeds, pests, bad weather and other problems that affect the growth of fruits and vegetables disappear in the greenhouse.

Not only greenhouse planting, but also multi-layer planting should be popularized. A set of combined hydroponic moulds can realize multi-layer planting on the same land. As arable land becomes less and less, and the global population continues to rise, the development of "vertical farms" has become our only option. In the future, most of the agricultural products will probably come from steel and concrete skyscrapers illuminated by LED light. However, the current greenhouse technology is limited to fruits and vegetables, but grain can not benefit a lot from greenhouse cultivation. Grain cultivation cannot be effectively supplemented by planting in such a controlled environment.

Therefore, we need to take action to modernize agriculture around the world in order to feed more than 9 billion people. Agricultural modernization is simple and feasible. At present, farmers in many underdeveloped areas have backward planting methods, no crop rotation, almost no irrigation, and even cultivated land with animal power. Promoting agricultural modernization around the world can feed more people. At the same time, expand the variety of staple crops and plant more beans, potatoes and sweet potatoes, which can not only increase food production, but also obtain very high nutritional value. Farms with data as the core are on the rise. As the data is collected, the farm will become more efficient. In the future, the contradiction between the increase in demand for meat and the decrease of arable land will be more prominent. In order to solve this problem, the future meat may come from the laboratory. So it's not a crazy idea to turn farmland into a high-tech laboratory in the future.

One optimistic idea is that if mankind can use technology and infrastructure to solve the food problem, it is possible to save a lot of land in the future. Cultivated land is released to return to nature, which also plays an important role in improving the environment and reversing climate change.